1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mobile broadcast system, and in particular, to a method and system for sharing a service guide or service guide fragments in a mobile broadcast system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The mobile communication market constantly faces the need for production of new services through recombination or integration of the existing technologies. Today, due to the development of communication and broadcast technologies, the conventional broadcast system or mobile communication system has reached the phase of providing broadcast services through portable terminals (mobile terminals) such as mobile phone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and the like. Convergence of mobile communication service and Internet protocol (IP) is now the mainstream of the next generation mobile communication technology in harmony between the latent market needs, the increasing user demand for multimedia services, the strategy of the service providers for providing new services like the broadcast service in addition to the existing voice service, and the interests of the Information Technology (IT) companies that are reinforcing their mobile communication business to meet the user demands.
Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), which is a group for studying the standard for interworking between individual mobile solutions, mainly takes is a leader in establishing various application standards for mobile games, Internet services, and the like. In particular, OMA BAC (Brower and Content) BCAST (Mobile Broadcast Sub Working Group), one of the OMA working groups, is studying the technology for providing broadcast services using mobile terminals.
In the mobile broadcast system, a mobile terminal for receiving a broadcast service should receive service guide information including description information of the service itself, charging information for the service, and information on a reception method of the service. The mobile terminal receives a corresponding service using the service guide information.
Although a description of the existing technology and the present invention will be made herein with reference to the OMA BCAST technology, which is one of the mobile broadcast technology standards, by way of example, this is not intended to limit the present invention.
FIG. 1 illustrates exemplary architecture of a general mobile broadcast system for delivering a service guide to a mobile terminal. Table 1 and Table 2 show interfaces used between logical entities of FIG. 1.
TABLE 1InterfaceNameDescriptionSG1(103)Server-to-server communications for delivering content attributes such as description information, location information, target terminal capabilities, target user profile, etc., in the form of BCAST service guide fragments; or in a proprietary format.SG2(106)Server-to-server communications for delivering BCAST service attributes such as service/content description information, scheduling information, location informationtarget terminal capabilities, target user profile, etc., in the form of BCAST service guide fragments.SG-B1(116)Server-to-server communications for either delivering BDS specific attributes from BDS BCAST Service Guide Adaptation function, to assist Service Guide adaptation to specific BDS, or to deliver BCAST Service Guide attributes to BDS for BDS specific adaptation and distribution.SG4(115)Server-to server communications for delivering provisioning information, purchase information, subscription information, promotional information, etc., in the form of BCSAT service guide fragments.SG5(117)Delivery of BCAST Service Guide through Broadcast Channel, over IP.SG6(118)Delivery of BCAST Service Guide through Interaction Channel. Interactive access to related Service Guide or additional information related to Service Guide, for example, HTTP, SMS, or MMS.
TABLE 2Interface NameDescriptionX-1(124)Reference Point between BDS Service Distribution and BDSX-2(125)Reference Point between BDS Service Distribution and Interaction NetworkX-3(126)Reference Point between BDS and TerminalX-4(127)Reference Point between BDS Service Distribution and terminal over Broadcast ChannelX-5(128)Reference Point between BDS Service Distribution and terminal over Broadcast ChannelX-6(129)Reference Point between Interaction Network and Terminal
Referring to FIG. 1, a Content Creation (CC) block 101 is a provider of a broadcast service (hereinafter referred to as “BCAST service”), and the BCAST service can include the conventional audio/video broadcast service, file (music file or data file) download service, and the like. With use of a Service Guide Content Creation Source (SGCCS) block 102, the Content Creation 101 delivers content information, capability information of a mobile terminal, user profile, content time information, etc., needed for the generation of a service guide for the BCAST service, to a Service Guide Application Source (SGAS) block 105 of a BCAST Service Application (BSA) block 104 via an SG-1 interface 103, defined in Table 1.
The BCAST Service Application block 104 takes charge of generating BCAST service data by processing data of BCAST service provided from the Content Creation block 101 into the form suitable for a BCAST network. In addition, the BCAST Service Application block 104 takes charge of generating standardized metadata necessary for the mobile broadcast guide.
The SGAS block 105 delivers various sources necessary for the generation of a service guide, such as service/content detail information, schedule information, location information, etc., including the information provided from the SGCCS block 102, to a Service Guide Generation (SG-G) block 109 of a BCAST Service Distribution/Adaptation block 108 via an SG-2 interface 106.
The BCAST Service Distribution/Adaptation (BSD/A) block 108 takes charge of setting up a bearer over which it will transmit the BCAST service data provided from the BCAST Service Application block 104, determining transmission schedules of the BCAST services, and generating mobile broadcast guide information. The BCAST Service Distribution/Adaptation block 108 is connected to a Broadcast Distribution System (BDS) 122, which is a network for transmitting BCAST service data, and an Interaction Network 123 supporting interaction communication.
A service guide generated by the SG-G block 109 is delivered to a Terminal (or mobile terminal) 119 via an SG Distribution (SG-D) block 110 and an SG-5 interface 117. If there is a need for delivering a service guide via the BDS 122 or the Interaction Network 123 supporting interaction communication, or for matching with a corresponding system or network, the service guide generated by the SG-G block 109 is matched by a SG Adaptation (SG-A) block 111 and then delivered to the SG-D block 110 or delivered to a BDS Service Distribution block 121 via an SG-B1 interface 116.
A BCAST Subscription Management (BSM) block 113 manages subscription information and service provisioning information for receipt of the BCAST service, and device information for a mobile terminal receiving the BCAST service. A Service Guide Subscription Source (SGSS) block 114 of the BCAST Subscription Management block 113 delivers sources, such as a subscription/provisioning related source, purchase information, promotional information, etc., needed for the generating of a service guide, to the SG-G block 109 for generating a service guide, via an SG-4 interface 115.
The BDS Service Distribution block 121 takes charge of distributing all received BCAST services through a broadcast channel or an interaction channel, and is an entity, the presence of which depends on a type of the BDS 122. The BDS 122 is a network for transmitting the BCAST service, and can be a broadcast network for, for example, Digital Video Broadcasting—Handheld (DVB-H), 3GPP Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS), and 3GPP2 Broadcast and Multicast Services (BCMCS). The Interaction Network 123 transmits the BCAST service on a point-to-point basis, or interactively exchanges control information and additional information related to the receipt of the BCAST service, and can be, for example, the existing cellular network.
The Terminal 119 is an apparatus capable of receiving the BCAST service, and has a function capable of connecting with the cellular network according to terminal capability. The Terminal 119, including a Service Guide Client (SG-C) 120, receives a service guide transmitted via the SG-5 interface 117, or receives a service guide transmitted via an SG-6 interface 118, and performs an appropriate operation for the BCAST service reception.
In the mobile broadcast system, the SG-G 109 receives information required to generate a service guide, provided from the CC 101, the BSA 104 and the BSM 113. With use of the provided information, the SG-G 109 generates a final service guide based on the data model described in FIG. 1.